The Outlook for Ethereum in 2018

Ethereum has always been the second most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin (except for a short period of time when Ripple Symbol XRP became the second most valuable cryptocurrency in December 2017).

Being one of the very first cryptocurrency that offered smart contracts as well as making partnerships with established businesses and companies, Ethereum has the advantage of a smart technology investment brand. Due to its utility and reputation, it is easy to see why people have high expectations for Ethereum trading.

That is why Ethereum has boasted 4,270% price increase for 2017, when it opened 2017 at $7.98 and reached its highest 2017 price at $881.94 on December 19, 2017. It is also interesting to note that the dominance of Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency markets is slowly and slowly decreasing, with Bitcoin controlling almost 80% of the cryptocurrency markets at the start of 2017, and by January 2018, Bitcoin Dominance fell to only 33%.

As of January 30, 2018, a price of one Ether is at $1,128.63.

Technical Analysis

A quick glance at the Ethereum chart, as of January 2018, will show you that the price of one Ethereum is trending up.

The Ethereum Chart also shows a very positive bullish bias after a short market correction from its top. The price is trading above the Ichimoku Cloud Indicator, and none of the wicks in the candlestick chart has recently touched the said indicator.

Recently, the moving average is showing a relatively big upward direction, and the short-term moving average is almost breaking out the longer moving average.

In a purely technical analysis viewpoint, Ethereum has a safe and conservative room for growth when it touches its new resistance level at its all time high of $1,400. With its price of $1,150, that is at least a 10% growth.

Fundamental Analysis

Holding Ethereum is a profitable exercise, simply because a lot of applications, business software programs and even cryptocurrencies use the Ethereum blockchain. This means that Ethereum is a diamond to Bitcoin’s gold; Ethereum has value as an industrial material as well as a store and unit of exchange for value. Bitcoin is used for the exchange and store of value. Companies use Bitcoin as a currency; Ethereum is used by businesses to make applications as well as create programs.

An interesting thing to note is that a lot of cryptocurrencies are based on the Ethereum blockchain instead of Bitcoin. Specifically, A lot of new coins are offered on the Ethereum platform. For instance, IOST, ETHLEND and other cryptocurrencies use the Ethereum Wallet for getting the payment for the first coin offering. In fact, the new cryptocurrencies also accept Ethereum coins, together with Bitcoins, as payment for their Initial Coin Offering.

Ethereum is also constantly improving its smart contracts function. This means that contracts are executed without the need of human execution. This makes a lot of business processes faster and easier and can help divert extra human resources to other important endeavors.

One very important benefit of Ethereum is the ability to make decentralized apps for developers. This means that Ethereum will be the programming language and back-end technology for making applications. For those who are active with the cryptocurrency world, you might have heard of CryptoKitties, which has led to the immense use of the Ethereum blockchain.

Conclusion

Fundamental analysis shows a very positive outlook for Ethereum. With just one of Ethereum’s project, Ether coins totaling to $20 million has been transacted, within just a month of the launching of CryptoKitties. A lot of ICO’s and cryptocurrencies use the Ethereum wallet as well as Ethereum for starting their operations, like IOST.

Technical analysis would also show that Ethereum has a lot of room to grow and at the same time is trending up. Ethereum has bounced off the moving averages and the support line.

With those reasons, there is a very positive outlook for Ethereum. While no one can predict the future, both fundamental and technical analysis would show that there is a lot of promise with Ethereum for 2018.